Our series on Empires takes us to the Umayyad Caliphate.
The second of the three uncontested Arab Caliphates, after the Rashidun Caliphate and before the Abbasid Caliphate, it is the one that reached the greatest extension, from the Iberian Peninsula to the West to the Indus River to the East. It put Spain, the Maghreb, Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia and Persia under direct Arab rule, and was responsible for the spread of Arabic language and culture. The Umayyad Caliphate had its capital in Damascus and lasted from 661ce to 750ce, at which point it was replaced by the Abbasid Caliphate, based in Baghdad.
The Umayyad Caliphate
